Evaluations of Firms and Professionals Who Provide Consumer Services. An Annotated Bibliography of Consumer Services.

Jackson, Gregg B.; Meyer, Francine H.

This annotated bibliography contains summaries of studies of consumer services in 39 fields, plus summaries of publications of interest to consumer advocates, published during the past 10 years. Since most service providers do business in a single locale, the evaluations are usually local in scope (for example, a comparison of major appliance repair firms in Washington, D.C.), although assessments of an entire service industry rather than of individual providers, suggestions to aid individual consumers in shopping for a given kind of service provider, general information about a service field, common problems and "ripoffs" in a service field, instructions for do-it-yourselfers, and methods for conducting consumer studies are included. The bibliography is organized into two parts. The first part covers the 39 service fields, arranged in alphabetical order. Example fields included are abortion clinics, appliance repair, auto repair, day care services, employment agencies, food stores, hospital emergency rooms, opticians, plumbers, schools, and television repair shops. The second part covers four general topics on producing and disseminating service provider evaluations (fund-raising and selling publications, libel law, publicity, and research methods). The annotations of those documents that report evaluations of service providers focus on the characteristics that were assessed, the means of data collection, and the basic findings. Names and addresses of contact persons and sources of the documents and related research materials and methodology are provided. (KC)